ABSTRACT
Drawing on EU–Kosovo relations, this chapter problematises the limits of the concept of hospitality and shows how a different form of hospitality, articulated from a performative perspective, is possible. While the EU’s hospitality is highly conditional and, ultimately, with its policy on visas, moves towards overt hostility (towards Kosovans), Kosovo’s hospitality towards the EU is close or identical to Derrida’s concept of unconditional hospitality. The chapter makes two central arguments: first, what makes hospitality possible is not the existence of a home, or the lack thereof: rather, it is the performance of home and hospitality through the relationships between guests and hosts. Second, EU–Kosovo relations are characterised by the intermittent cohabitation of all forms of Derrida’s hospitality (conditional hospitality, unconditional hospitality and hostility), while at the same time they transcend these forms.
